


no going back

by finalizer



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
Genre: Hux-centric, M/M, Missing Scene, TLJ Spoilers, after Kylo does The Thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 04:05:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13068768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finalizer/pseuds/finalizer
Summary: They have to reassess where they stand. In the grand scheme of things, and with each other.





	no going back

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this omw back from the cinema after seeing tlj for the 3rd time bc i have no impulse control

It’s so easy to keep going like this — leather creaking as Ren tightens his fist, as his glove struggles to accommodate — it would be so laughably easy to squeeze the last dregs of air from Hux’s lungs and watch him crumple to the ground, discarded; leave him unconscious on the collapsing ship and let the flames take with them his overgrown ambitions.

Ren’s hand twitches. Too easy. He reaches out with the Force and wraps the quivering tendrils rigid against Hux’s throat, unforgiving and unyielding. He can feel the hurried, skittering pulse beneath his intangible fingertips grow sluggish. He feels the desperation as Hux scrambles to pry the incorporeal pressure from his throat and draw the slightest sliver of air. He feels —

Ren goes still; his palm relaxes but he doesn’t relinquish. _Fear_. He feels fear, clear as day. For all his misgivings about Ren’s mysticism, his otherworldly cosmic power, Hux has never before shown an ounce of fear, not a shred of hesitation before standing up to Ren and matching Ren’s Force with his own sheer force of will. Idiotic, maybe. Outright suicidal, but Ren could respect that in Hux. Pompous, yes. Arrogant beyond belief. But never afraid — not like this.

Ren drops his hand, arm falling slack at his side.

The pressure disappears and Hux’s body gives off one single shudder before falling impossibly still. His hands slip from his throat but his reflexes are not fast enough in his state to brace his fall as he topples to the ground.

For the longest time, he doesn’t move. Too long. It’s too long, Ren thinks, he knows he stopped in time.

Then the leather creaks, a familiar sound, as Hux’s gloved hands curl into trembling fists. He shakes as a desperate wheeze wracks his body, weak and building to a crescendo, punctuated by a broken, choking cough.

He shakes as he pushes himself up on unsteady arms, that perfect, bright hair falling out of place, looking as wrecked as Hux feels. It radiates off him and Ren picks up the scraps. Shame, furious and blazing. Anger, but overshadowed by that hungry, all-encompassing fear. Ren finds what he seeks, in the end: loyalty, begrudging but vividly present. Hux is an intelligent creature, after all; he’s gotten far enough to have worked up a survival instinct. He’d meant it earlier, what he’d said to Ren through the vice grip crushing his throat, he’d said it quite honestly.

“Good,” Ren says, in response to his own train of thought. “Get up.”

Hux draws in another breath, a whistling wheeze too ill-sounding for comfort. With every bit of willpower he can muster, he drags himself to a kneel before attempting to push himself up. He stumbles, the squeaking echo of his glove dragging against the steel floor resounding all too sharply through the empty chamber as he tries to brace his fall. 

Sparks rain from the smoldering fires. They’re surrounded by chaos and destruction, the two of them. How fitting.

Hux fails to bite back another shattering cough, but grits his teeth together and pushes himself to his feet. He looks up at Ren for the first time, expression carefully blank. Truly too smart for his own good, preservation instincts honed to perfection.

Ren goes for disdain as he meets Hux’s eyes, but somewhere deep down he feels a twinge of something else — pity, burning hot, slipping like shards between his ribs. He’d hurt Hux more than he’d intended. He hadn't meant to do it at all, in hindsight. He lost himself to blind rage and lashed out. Hux had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ren lingers on the thought and promptly snuffs it out, the weakness, the pity flickering out along with it.

He turns to go, knowing Hux will follow.

Ren makes it no more than two steps before Hux interjects. His voice is quiet, impossibly hoarse, when he speaks.

“What do you plan to do? Climb aboard a ship and blow everything to hell? Reckless, uncontrolled, uncivilized? We need to regroup. We’ve taken a blow. We need to reassess where we stand, Ren. It’s not enough to act on instinct.”

Movements slow and deliberate, Ren turns to look back at Hux. He stands mere paces away, eyes burning and hollowed. His lips are still a sickly shade of purple, standing out so horribly against the pallor of his skin. He's a dead man walking, and yet so incorrigibly defiant.

Still, he falls silent when Ren mirrors his glare. There’s no need for further action, for physical threat or coercion. Hux knows what he has to do to carry on living. Hux is already afraid. It’s a fear that bleeds from the settling shock of Ren turning against him so suddenly — unpredictable and unhinged.

“You’re going to assemble _your_ forces,” Ren spits the word like a jab at Hux, “and you’re going to do as I say.”

Hux’s face twitches as he struggles to keep himself in check. He’s not nearly as inherently controlled as he's made out to be. It’s all self-taught and carefully practiced, his rigor. And the cracks are there, ready to remind everyone around Hux that he’s just a man.

“You have no idea what you’re doing.”

It grates on Ren’s nerves, that after all Hux has been dragged through, he remains so awfully stubborn. Despite the bruising ache barely subsiding from his windpipe, and the way his breaths still come too quick, too shallow, he stands his ground and sets his jaw against Ren’s orders. His thoughts are rampant but calculated, regardless: he doesn’t openly question what he’s been told, merely sneaks in slivers of defiance like chinks in his armor, not traitorous enough for Ren to attack him for.

Ultimately, Hux knows how, when there’s bigger things at stake, to lock up anything he might be feeling and shelve it away for another day, perhaps forever. Like a good little solider, for whom the Order comes first.

There’s something else too, simmering beneath the surface, that Ren latches on to, coursing through Hux’s veins. Some bright, burning idea that he’s the only one capable of reigning in Ren’s explosiveness like this, that it’s his responsibility to tame the chaotic fire Ren cannot control on his own.

Pathetic. Laughable, now. With Snoke dead by Ren’s hand there’s no overlord for Hux to turn to. No one for Hux to show off for — how much better he is than Ren, how much more collected, how _worthy_. 

Hux has nothing left but to follow.

“That wasn’t a question. Not an offer,” Ren says finally, curt and cold. “You’re going to do as I say. Whatever I say. You’ll make it work.”

Hux swallows down whatever he wants to spit back. He winces at the pain in his throat, in his lungs that refuses to abate. Every shred of strength he can gather he directs towards uncurling his hands from fists, and flattens them at his sides. Just another cog in the machine, a sharp tool following orders from bigger, better men.

Once more, Ren turns to go. 

Distantly, he feels the two sides of Hux’s mind tearing him apart: the vehement desire to fight back against Ren’s theatrics trickling away to make way for resentful acquiescence. 

Above all, Hux craves power; whatever he can do, and whoever he can latch on to to gain it, he’ll stop at nothing to grasp at it and destroy everything in his path that stands in his way. He’ll concede and bide his time until the time is right, until he can topple empires beneath his steely gaze. It’s something he yearns for so desperately: endless power, and something he cowers before.

This time, Ren doesn’t have to look back to know Hux is following.

He knows Hux will fall in line.

**Author's Note:**

> i have a lot of feelings. yell with me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/finaiizer) & [tumblr](http://esmesqualor.tumblr.com)


End file.
